A SONET signal (i.e. such as STS-48, meaning 48 synchronous transport streams) is typically composed of multiple STS-1's which are assigned to various resources or clients, with the greater the number of STS-1's representing increased bandwidth. Typically, reallocating the STS-1's amongst the clients is done by re-provisioning, whereby the data channel between the clients of the transmit and receive nodes must be taken out of service, resulting in an interruption of communications and service.
There is a need, therefore, for means to reallocate STS-1's amongst clients on an “in-service” basis with no perceived interruption in data communication service by the clients.